—A.D.
Lyman would have said that he didn’t know any A.D.s, but for the reference to her sister. Hell must have frozen over if Miss Annabelle was writing to him. Imagining an increasingly worrisome list of possibilities, he sent a message to his pupil’s house to apologize for his absence and hurried to the Danby residence.
Della might be terribly ill.No, they would send for a doctor, not a disgraced viscount.
Our trip to Laurent’s Casino has been discovered. This possibility was somewhat more likely, though once again, why would Miss Annabelle send for him? Unless their father was waiting at home with a dueling pistol and this was her way of luring him into the trap.
When Lyman arrived, the butler bade him wait a moment until Miss Annabelle came downstairs to greet him.
“Where’s Della?” he asked as she led him into the drawing room.
“Miss Danby,” she corrected, “needs a minute to fix her face.”
“What’s happened to her face?” This got worse and worse.
“Oh no,” Annabelle added quickly. “I only meant she’s freshening up. I don’t think she slept a wink last night, and she’ll want to look pretty for you or some such nonsense.”
“Is she all right?” Lyman was relieved both at the fact that Della had apparentlynotsuffered any disfiguring injury and that no one had challenged him to a duel yet, but he wouldn’t mind knowing what was going on.
“I gather there was some trouble at her club and she’s had a row with her friend over it. She was in hysterics this morning. I thought you might do a better job of calming her down than I could.”
Lyman paused, letting the significance of this statement sink in. For all their bickering, the Danby sisters looked out for each other when it counted. He wasn’t sure when he’d earned Annabelle’s trust, but he appreciated it all the same.
“Thank you, Miss Annabelle.”
Della came in just then, and Annabelle excused herself with a parting curtsy in his direction. Lyman rose to his feet to guide Della gently to the divan. It was obvious that she’d been crying, despite her efforts to hide the evidence. Her face had been scrubbed pink and clean, but her eyes were swollen and dull, with no sign of their usual sparkling mischief.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Your sister summoned me.”
“Really?” Della glanced toward the door where Annabelle had just made her exit. “I must be a sorry sight indeed.”
“What happened?”
“I’ve ruined everything, that’s what.” Della brought a hand to her face as she recounted the tale. Her hands were bare—she must have forgotten to put on gloves in her distracted state. “Miss Williams lied to me about gaining her family’s permission to attend Bishop’s so that I’d let her in, and then she ruined herself by kissing one of our dealers in front of her mother and half our members.”
Lyman had trouble digesting all of this. How did the girl’s mother get there just in time to catch her with a dealer, and what had any of that to do with Della?
“I’m not sure I understand how her behavior is your fault. Surely you didn’t force her to kiss this fellow?”
“But I was in charge!” Della replied, as if this were sufficient reason to spend the morning in utter misery. “I was supposed to watch out for her.”
“It sounds as if Miss Williams did everything possible to preventyou from watching out for her,” Lyman noted. “And I imagine you had other things to attend to. Were you all alone again?”
“I wish you wouldn’t say it that way. You make it sound as though it’s Mr. and Mrs. Williams’s fault for not being there, when I really should have been able to handle things. They aren’t neglecting the club, you know. They have a family to look after!”
Lyman wasn’t entirely persuaded by this, but he wouldn’t criticize her friends. It would only upset her further. Besides, he had some experience with the sting of self-recrimination.
“You’re very understanding of your friends,” he said gently. “Is it possible they might be equally understanding of you? Surely they must see that this girl set out to give you the slip so she could get herself into some trouble, whatever her reasons for it might be.”
Della sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “You don’t understand. This is the worst thing that’sever happenedto Bishop’s. If we gain a reputation for ruining young ladies, we might lose all our members.”
“In my experience, no gaming hell was ever harmed by a bit of scandal. Quite the opposite.”
This seemed to mollify Della somewhat, though she still protested, “For gentlemen, perhaps. Society holds ladies to a different standard.”
“Are the ladies who frequent Bishop’s particularly rule-abiding, or do they tend to be a more rebellious lot?”
